New Insight Article: Lessons From the First Decade of Knowledge Management

I was very fortunate to hop on the KM bandwagon long before it became a bandwagon, before it was a trend or a buzzword, before it was even called Knowledge Management. This forced me to really think about what it really was all about; and it gave me the opportunity to share this thinking with others who were leading the exploration of this new territory.

Today, 17 years and many projects later, I observe that most people don’t look beyond the Knowledge Management hype; entire organizations fail to address the layers below the obvious immediate aspects of KM. Thus, although the available tools are far better than they were all those years ago (when we had to develop them in-house), the underlying culture and philosophy are often ignored, as I witness when talking to companies who should know better.

So – here is my new insight article in which I share some of what happened, and some key concepts that I came to appreciate during Knowledge Management’s first decade – and that I think we should all keep in mind when applying it today.